Fisher asks appeals court to reconsider UT admissions case

Rejected University of Texas applicant Abigail Fisher is asking a U.S. appeals court to consider her case one more time.

Rejected University of Texas applicant Abigail Fisher is asking a U.S. appeals court to consider her case one more time.

Photo: Charlie Pearce, MBR

Photo: Charlie Pearce, MBR

Image
1of/6

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 6

Rejected University of Texas applicant Abigail Fisher is asking a U.S. appeals court to consider her case one more time.

Rejected University of Texas applicant Abigail Fisher is asking a U.S. appeals court to consider her case one more time.

Photo: Charlie Pearce, MBR

Fisher asks appeals court to reconsider UT admissions case

1 / 6

Back to Gallery

Abigail Fisher, who says she was discriminated against when she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin in 2008, is asking the federal appeals court that has twice upheld UT's race-conscious admissions policies to reconsider her case once again.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that UT's admissions policy was constitutional. UT considers race as a factor for roughly 25 percent of students who are not admitted under the Top 10 percent rule, which grants automatic admission the top students of a high school's graduating class.

Fisher, a white applicant from Sugar Land whose grades did not put her in the Top 10 percent of her senior class, claimed UT admitted minority students with worse grades than hers, violating the 14th Amendment in denying her admission.

Fisher, whose case has bounced from court to court for six years, making it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which kicked it back to the 5th circuit, vowed to appeal the ruling. She and her attorneys have now asked all 15 judges of the court -- a relatively conservative court -- to consider the case.

"We believe that Abigail Fisher has a very good chance of having her case heard en banc, and ultimately reversed by the 5th circuit," said Edward Blum, of the Project on Fair Representation, which has provided legal representation for Fisher.

If the court approves the request to rehear the case, they could hear oral arguments in January.